Perhaps the most notable art (of sorts) to come out of Cuba was THAT picture of Che Guevara (photo by Alberto Korda) which ended up being maybe one of the most noted photos of the last century.

The native Cuban art cause accumulated some pace after the opening of the the art academy (San Alejandro) back in 1818, which was constructed to meet the European penchant of the Cuban middle class. In the late 1800s, landscape paintings dominated the art movement of Cuba and classicalism was still the genre of choice.

Yet, the Vanguardia Cuban modern artist of the 1920s had scorned the academic norms of Cuba’s national art academy. In their genesis, many Cuban artists had resided in France, where they learned and engaged in the founding rules of modernist primitivism, surrealism, and cubism. They returned to Cuba dedicated to ground-breaking artistic methods and were keen to fuse this new artistic tendency with a Cuban twist. The vanguardia artists accomplished global acknowledgement in 2003 when the MOMA presented the the Modern Cuban Painting show. Such art styles are now fashionable through canvas art prints adorned on walls worldwide.

I’ve always thought that there’s an artist within everyone. At a very young age we’re all encouraged to pick up coloured crayons and start filling the inside of the dotted lines. It’s an avenue of expression, a pathway to enhanced imagination and it’s also a single stroke of the pencil. It’s good to draw inspiration from your surroundings, and those who are able to tend to feel their environment and then translate the inspiration into objects of aesthetic value.

Many artists prefer using craft supplies like clay (pottery), tiles, paints and metals to bend all these materials into shapes and paint them in colours which mean something. It’s not always easy deciphering what all the art work translates into but they’re mostly representative of the artist’s thoughts. Good artisans are those who, in my opinion, say a lot with minimal resources. Even a simple clay sculpture, which doesn’t need much – just wet clay and a spinning wheel – can be moulded into a statement.

I personally prefer abstract art which is a form of art open to interpretation. Mostly its paint based so you just need a canvas and different coloured paints to project what’s on your mind on the white. Splattering the paint, using brushes, stencils or other objects can be used to “blurt” out what needs to be said.